


Eddie Kaspbrak’s Carefully Calibrated Carnal Awakening

by beverlymarshian



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Coming In Pants, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Established Relationship, First Time, Grinding, M/M, POV Richie Tozier, Post-Canon, Praise Kink, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, eddie has hang ups but god does he want to fuck his boyfriend, everybody lives but we don't need to relitigate it, sometimes foreplay happens in a google doc, when your pwp gets more plot than intended
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:28:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26280412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beverlymarshian/pseuds/beverlymarshian
Summary: The document is in a project proposal format, complete with a neat little table of contents, an executive summary, a list of the issues to be covered, headers and sub-headers, even the occasional chart. Richie doesn't get to skim these right away because his eyes are locked on the title of the proposal.Eddie Kaspbrak's Carefully Calibrated Sexual Awakening
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 33
Kudos: 528





	Eddie Kaspbrak’s Carefully Calibrated Carnal Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is the first part of a ~potential pwp series and it has more plot than intended, but ideally future instalments (if there's any interest) won't. thank you to call (@scarletscold on twitter!) for wordsprinting with me so I could bang out the last 5k.
> 
> No strong warnings for this chapter, although I note: the premise of the fic is Eddie unwinding his sexual hang ups, there's some discussion of working through internalized homophobia, and a brief discussion of erotic asphyxiation, and brief references to the use of restraints. This is a VERY light series.

It happens a little something like this.

The thing about almost dying is that it has the potential to make you feel incredibly brave. They were never as brave as they were in 1989, after It, before they disappeared one by one. It was an invincibility—if Pennywise couldn’t kill them, what mortal force could? It made all of them various shades of brave, bold, and reckless while they were together. One by one they left Derry until they all returned to various shades of anxious, fearful, and cowardly, hindered by a childhood they couldn’t remember and a trauma they couldn’t name.

The thing about almost dying twice is that it gave them all another chance to be incredibly brave. If they were brave in 1989, they could be braver in 2016: they all survived, It was fucking gone, for real this time, and the gap in their memories so deep and profound and incomprehensible was filled. It gave them all a second chance at life, if they wanted it. And they did.

This time when they left Derry, one by one, they left in various shades of brave, bold, and reckless that did not fade after crossing city lines, that held strong from county-to-county, that withstood cross-country flights and long, lazy drives. Ben went back to Chicago to learn who he was and what he wanted to create when he was no longer tethered to a yearbook signature he couldn’t remember. Bill flew back to LA to be honest with his wife and salvage his career, and learn how to mourn now that he remembers what he lost. Bev hires a team of lawyers and hits the open road with Mike, two people whose lives were never their own but who don’t want to be alone to find out who they are. Stan and Patty return to Georgia but they return different, stronger, bonded by a shared memory and a connected past. They have a groupchat now, the Losers Club, eight strong, and hey, maybe that’s a luckier number than seven, in the end. It got them all out of there.

Richie and Eddie are the last to leave Derry, although not by much.

Eddie is brave, bold, and reckless, as he has always been, maybe braver than all of them put together. He left his wife from the hospital waiting room where all of them recovered with miraculously minor injuries, and he tells her the truth: I was bad for you. You were bad for me. We were worse together. We will be happier apart. I’m gay, and I’ve known this a long time, and I think you have too. I don’t think we ever made each other happy. I’m sorry we didn’t end this sooner.

Richie is brave too, although he doesn’t feel it. In that same hospital waiting room, surrounded by the only people he has ever really, truly known, and a spread of strangers—a little girl with a broken wrist, a man injured in a construction accident, an elderly lady in the corner nursing a hacking cough—he tells them that’s he is gay. And Richie is shaking the whole time so they hold him until he stops and then they hold him some more. The thing about being brave is that it’s hard, of course it is, but it’s so much easier surrounded by people who love each other with an unconditionality forged in the gulf between who they were and who they are, fuelled by the spark to be someone new. To reinvent oneself with the help of those who know you. A rebirth.

Later that same day, in the Townhouse, where he follows Richie back to his room without them talking about it, and stays there that night without talking about it, Eddie says from the left side of the bed: I need to go back to New York. He says it like he’s waiting for something. 

So Richie says: I’ll drive you. And he does. And on the way out of town they pass over a bridge where the memories of joy and love and grief and pain are so intertwined that maybe they are all the same in the end, and Richie decides to be brave. He pulls over.

He says: I carved our initials there. That summer, 27 years ago. When I was brave. I loved you then and I love you now and I loved you all the years in between. I don’t expect anything. I just love you. 

And Eddie says: You see that R? Who do you think carved that? I loved you then and I love you now and I loved you all the years in between. I think, after all this, we are allowed to expect things.

So they carve their names again, together this time, into the aging wood of the bridge. They see those letters nestled together like the two of them always were, like the two of them always would be. They are both brave: they kiss there on the bridge of a town that no longer holds power over them. They kiss there on the bridge where boys like them weren’t meant to kiss each other and suddenly they have power over the town, not the other way around, and they think maybe there will never be a time where a place holds power over them that they cannot face together.

This is all to say that everyone has been very good and very brave and is trying very hard to recreate themselves in an image that they recognize, in an image that they love.

Being very brave does not, however, undo years of repression. So there’s still all that. 

Richie drives him to New York and they stay there—an apartment for them. Richie comes out and has to do a lot of fucking press but the net outcome is that it’s not actually terrible for his career, in its own way, and he’s trying to write again. Eddie files for divorce and is working on building their life together. They kiss and they cuddle and they share a bed. They fight for space in the bathroom mirror. They order takeout because neither of them can cook but Eddie has started the administrative act of assembling a Pinterest board of recipes and Richie has started trying to cook them, with various degrees of success.

What they don’t do, however, is have sex. Not for lack of a sex drive either. Eddie apparently finds himself popping one whenever Richie bends over to empty the garbage under the sink. He’s in therapy and he’s working on it and he knows it’s a process but he also has the sneaking suspicion that after 40 years he deserves to get off with the love of his life. 

Eddie says this all one day, three months after Derry, in almost a single breath, while Richie is trying very hard to flip a French omelette and immediately overcooks it at the slightest thought that Eddie likes how he looks bent over. Eddie sits at their kitchen table with a furrow in his brow like the whole thing is a particularly tricky section of his morning Sudoku and not an absolutely bananas way to broach the topic, or several topics, all at once, when Richie is still trying to keep his eyes open. It’s the same way Eddie has most conversations before breakfast. 

“What was the point of all that fucking bravery if I can’t touch your dick?” Eddie finishes, not looking up from the newspaper laid flat on their kitchen island. Richie dumps the omelette directly into the compost bin and wonders if it’s too late to go back to bed.

He doesn’t, though, because if Eddie can be brave and do all these things that scare the shit out of him like wean himself off medications he doesn’t need and go to therapy to actually talk about his issues, all while getting a fucking divorce, Richie can have this conversation twice a week until Eddie believes him.

“Eds, honey, if we do nothing more than we do now for the rest of our lives, I’ll still be the happiest fucker alive,” he says.

And he means it. Of course he means it. Before Derry 2.0, Richie knew in theory that people could be happy, even _very_ happy. He knew that people could lead full and meaningful lives and love out loud and do things they want to do instead of all the things they think they have to do. Richie never thought the same rules applied to him. Since then he has developed a bit of an optimistic streak and it can all be boiled down to the man sitting in the kitchen putting three sugars into his morning coffee because _who the fuck is going to tell me I can’t? You eat like shit._

Eddie’s face scrunches up and he looks up from the newspaper. “Don’t say shit like that.”

“Shit like what? The truth? You want me to lie to you?” Richie asks, turning the stove off while he restarts this omelette.

Eddie groans. “No. Can you just tell the truth with a little less bone-crushing sincerity?”

Their eyes meet over the kitchen island and Eddie’s scowl has melted away, replaced with something soft, something fond. His jaw relaxes and the furrow in his brow smooths out to the same three lines that are always there, that Richie presses his lips to every morning before dragging them both out of bed. God, Richie fucking loves him.

“I want to fuck you, Rich.”

Richie nearly drops the egg flipper. “Can _you_ tell the truth with a little less bone-inducing sincerity?”

A ballpoint pen sails through the air, poised to hit him in the forehead, but he knows how these things go—the same as they always have. He dodges in time for the pen to clatter into the stainless steel sink basin behind him instead. Eddie only looks mildly disappointed. They do this a lot.

“I just have issues,” Eddie says, pulling another, identical pen from the neat little cloth pen case he appears to own solely for Sudoku purposes. He turns his attention back to his paper. “But I want to. You know, when things get a little intense I stop them and instead of letting you touch my dick I run to the shower and jerk off? And it’s not like some self-hating, eyes closed, crying in the shower shit either. I jerk off and imagine that it’s you touching me. Like, what the fuck?”

Eddie says all this while Richie is trying to delicately crack an egg on the side of the counter. Instead, he smashes the egg against the granite and while the egg successfully cracks, it all ends up dripping between his fingers and onto the floor. He stares at the number of eggs left in the carton and thinks that if he can just get through this without Eddie saying anything else that makes the blood leave his brain like the evacuation of fucking Pompeii that maybe he can still make an omelette.

It isn’t exactly news to him. They have been taking things at a careful, measured pace informed by Richie’s anxieties as much as Eddie’s. Sometimes, though, they’ll be sitting on the couch and a make-out session straddling the line between lazy and purposeful slips a little. Eddie will climb into his lap for the angle and Richie’s hands will slide up Eddie’s shirt and things are _good_ , skin pricking with sweat and breath edging towards panting. He lets Eddie set the pace and sometimes he will get a few slow, dizzying rolls of his hips down against Richie before it stutters to a halt. They’ll press their foreheads together until their breathing calms down, Eddie throws him an apologetic look, Richie tosses back something guilt-laden, and they bitch at each other for both feeling sorry. 

He also knows in an abstract sense that Eddie is attracted to him. Sure, there’s an expected physiological reaction to kisses that turn heated and hands that roam, but that only goes so far. His sole attempt, early in their relationship, to suggest even jokingly that Eddie wasn’t attracted to him was met with a piercing glare, an angry jab at his diaphragm, and a _you’re fucking hot, Richard._ It was perhaps the most terrifying way he had ever been complimented and he still thinks about it in the shower everyday. He just had not quite let himself think that Eddie thinks about _him_ in the shower. 

“Touching yourself is very different from having someone else touch you,” Richie decides to say, bending down with a soft _pop_ of his knees to wipe the egg off the floor. 

“Stop being so fucking reasonable. I pay my therapist to tell me that shit. You like sex, right?” 

“Immensely. But like I said—“

“I’ve never enjoyed sex. But I have also never had sex with a partner who aligned with my sexual identity.”

“You can just say you’ve never had gay sex. We get it. You’re gay.” Richie glances at him long enough to watch the colour rise on his cheeks before he turns back to wash his hands.

“Shut the fuck up. I know I'm gay. Fuck you. I’m saying, I really think I could enjoy sex. Sex with you. And I really, really want to do it. It’s just the gap between me imagining you bending me over and the physical act of a dick in my ass.”

It takes every single one of his shit fucking reflexes for him not to drop another egg. Whoever said that you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs clearly never met Eddie or they would understand that there had to be limits to the number of eggs broken before it was better to just have toast instead.

He takes his time responding, using the eggs as an excuse to focus on something other than the ringing in his ears. Three eggs, cracked on the counter, no shells in the bowl, a splash of cold water, a pinch of salt. Pierce the yolks then whisk away. It’s going to be viscous at first, but with time the eggs will go runny and slide off the whisk. That’s when you know. He could make a regular omelette, but a french omelette is runny in the middle, bright yellow, and full of butter—the exact sort of indulgence Richie would have found pointless and Eddie would have found revolting. They are both trying to be different people.

He can feel Eddie’s gaze on the side of his head and he tries to poke at Eddie’s declaration, replaying in his head at double speed, like the natural delivery wasn’t fast enough, and tries to figure out where to start unpacking that box. _The gap_ between fantasy and reality. Richie turns to face him, leaning back against the sink. Eddie looks less of his normal, high-strung state of annoyance, something closer to frustrated. It’s a sad look on him.

“Look, I don’t care if we never do anything, but—let me finish!” Richie chides, over the beginning of an objection. Eddie closes his mouth, jaw working. “We don’t have to go from fucking handholding to anal, right? Whatever we do, we can start with what works and go from there.”

The furrow reappears in Eddie’s brow and his lips purse. He lays the newspaper down completely now, folding it, putting the pen back into the case and zipping it closed. His movements are slow and paced, but he doesn’t look away from Richie’s face. Richie is uncomfortable with prolonged eye contact at the best of times, let alone when Eddie stares at him like he’s a particularly complex spreadsheet with a pivot table and he’s trying to trigger the right fucking slicers to do whatever it is all those words mean. Eddie works from a lot of spreadsheets and has developed a fondness for explaining them to Richie despite knowing he isn’t listening. This narrow-eyed focus directed at him is somewhere in the ether between disturbing and arousing.

“I know this on a theoretical level,” Eddie starts, biting back the rest of his thought.

“But?” Richie prompts.

Eddie waves a hand in the air and makes a distressed sound. “But once things start feeling really fucking good my brain jumps to: I’m not ready for a dick in my ass.”

“That’s a bit of a jump,” Richie says, not unkindly. It’s the kind of statement that would normally set Eddie off, but instead it looks like he found the slicer he was looking for and the data is pouring in. Maybe Richie was listening. So he presses on: “Grinding on the couch can just be grinding on the couch.”

A sound that is almost a _huh_ escapes Eddie’s throat like it crawled its way out. “I think I’ve been playing a zero sum game in my head.”

“And as a result you’ve had a zero cum game?”

This snaps Eddie out of his reverie like Richie set off a firecracker. “I don’t know why I want to have sex with you.”

“The joke was right there,” Richie insists. It doesn’t tamp down the glare. “Look, man. It isn’t all or nothing. It’s not like the fucking X on a map, you know? We can just focus on what feels good and what you’re comfortable with. If we don’t get to anal we haven’t _failed_.”

Richie feels quite helpless for a moment, oscillating between metaphors. Their relationship has been shaped and slowed and morphed and adjusted to accommodate and incorporate both of their anxieties. Richie may not have the same hang-ups about sexual intimacy, but he isn’t a model of fucking self-actualization either. Eddie is happy to hold his hand in the grocery store or put a hand low on his back when they cross the street, even lean up and press a kiss to his cheek or his jaw when they’re in line for coffee in the morning. But Richie still flinches away, his hand balling into a fist at his side or his pace quickening or leaning just enough that Eddie gets the hint. Any disappointment he feels, he doesn’t show. It’s just patience. The days Richie is less anxious about it, less scared, and lets Eddie take his hand or kiss his cheek, Eddie smiles at him like he has accomplished something, however small. It reminds him that they are both working on themselves but that they don’t have to do it alone.

But then Eddie hums, low and thoughtful. His pin-straight posture relaxes back into the chair. His right hand settles on the newspaper, making tiny tears in the cover. Richie can see the thought working its way through his head, that they can do some things without doing everything. Eddie has always been a physical thinker—fidgeting, slowly shredding the cover of the newspaper into neat little strips that will later become tiny little squares; knee bouncing so fast that the empty fruit bowl on the counter rattles in time; mouth working silently around words like even when he isn’t speaking he needs to feel them on his tongue. Richie smiles at him softly, and when Eddie notices, he smiles back.

Richie turns his attention back to the omelette. They sit in near-silence, except for tiny rips of paper, the continued rattle of the fruit bowl, and the quiet hiss of egg hitting the melted butter in the frying pan. Richie nails the French omelette, finally, and Eddie stares at it with a delighted little grin, even as Richie melts more butter on top of the finished product. He kisses Richie, eggy breath and all, against the island until he’s late for work and then kisses him a little longer. Richie couldn’t possibly be more in love.

* * *

Eddie doesn't bring the whole _Richie I want to fuck you_ thing up again for the rest of the week, which is honestly for the best. It's not like Richie doesn't want it to happen. Sexual contact with Eddie Kaspbrak was the top of teenage Richie's pyramid of needs and time doesn't change everything. It does, however, put things in perspective, and at this stage of his life the top of the pyramid is simply Eddie, with no qualifiers. So Richie really doesn’t think about it much again that week. At least, not until Friday.

Fridays are Richie's favourite day of the week. For one, his assistant Rilee visits upon him the small mercy of not scheduling calls, meetings, interviews, or appearances on Fridays. This is less because of any particular affection Rilee has for Fridays, and more because they have had to deal with Richie's incalculable levels of grumpiness when he isn't home for the beginning of Eddie's weekend.

Eddie is the second and most obvious reason that Fridays are his favourite. Eddie isn't exactly _unpleasant_ on weekdays, but he is more measured. He is in bed by midnight, usually reluctant to partake in snacks, and quicker to frustrate. It isn't that he hates his job, he insists, but he finds it difficult to unwind on weekdays knowing that the next morning he just has to get up and go back to work. Fridays, however, Eddie leaves early. Friday drinks cut the work day off at four. He stays for exactly one glass of wine (white, red makes him sleepy) and thirty minutes of casual talk ( _I know how to fucking talk to my coworkers Richie, Jesus fucking Christ_ ). He is home by six and nearly always in a mood verging on gleeful at the knowledge of sixty consecutive work-free hours.

On weeknights, Richie cooks, with varying degrees of success, and orders out food where the attempt is less successful. Fridays they set up a little routine: Eddie is home earlier, less tired, and happier, and the result is that he's a ball of thrumming energy. They channel that into cooking something together that usually works out, because Richie forces him to be a little creative about the recipes but Eddie will absolutely tap the cookbook of the week firmly if he thinks they're going too off the rails.

So Fridays are good. Richie cleans the house a little, gets groceries, and has extra time to laze around working on material in fits and starts until he hears Eddie's keys in the door and then finds himself leaping up like a golden retriever to catch him in the hallway. It is well-worth the brief, insecure spark of embarrassment he feels at making it so clear that he spends the day waiting for him, because Eddie kicking off his shoes while pressing him up against the front door and laughing against his lips is his favourite part of the week.

It is, by all accounts, a perfectly average Friday. Their usual Whole Foods is out of the particular brand of Earl Grey that Eddie drinks (lavender, looseleaf, absurdly expensive), so he has to go to two stores to complete their grocery shopping. He gets home just after two and vacuums for a bit, before settling at the dining table with his laptop and the earliest, wriggling idea for a bit based loosely around his favourite Whole Foods cashier—a tiny woman well into her sixties who responds to any of Richie's attempts to make her laugh with an infinitely funnier joke in a customer service voice honed by decades of dealing with unfunny people. Richie is obsessed with her.

He gets through his ambience steps—a frighteningly empty word doc, eighties music blasting and the TV on in the background (as much noise as possible at one time makes it easier for him to focus and drives Eddie absolutely berserk), a glass of water that is mostly ice chips, and a concerningly large bowl of jalapeno chips—when he gets an email from Eddie.

> Hey Rich,
> 
> Please see attached a document for your review. Give me a call if you have any questions. :)
> 
> Love,
> 
> Edward Kaspbrak
> 
> Risk Analyst
> 
> Praetor Insurance
> 
> 233-889-5524
> 
> This email and any accompanying attachments contain confidential information and are intended only for the named recipients. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender and destroy the email.  
> 

The most charming part of these emails is the coupling of the default signature and boilerplate language with the tiny little _love_ , meant for him. The email is not unusual. It links to a google doc that he is invited to edit. Eddie often redacts confidential client information from reports or proposals and sends them to Richie to proofread before he submits them. Richie once asked if he was _allowed_ to do that and Eddie didn't look away from the TV when he said _ask me if I give a fuck_. Eddie once asked, in turn, if it was okay that he sent it to Richie. He told Eddie it made him feel better about trying bit after bit on him. In truth, every time he got an email notification it sets his heart aflutter that Eddie values his insights. Whatever. He's fucking gay and stupid in love. He thinks he's allowed to flutter a little.

So he covers the bowl of jalapeno chips for later and snags some salt and vinegar chips instead (good for editing, keeps you alert) and settles back in his chair for a brain-bleed inducing, dull little memo to a client on why their newest venture is insurable, all written in Eddie's tight little non-nonsense corporate sentences, something Richie finds to be a hilarious divergence from his normal, loose, all-nonsense spoken sentences. He shoves a handful of chips into his mouth and opens the document.

He chokes so badly on his chips that for a moment he is very grateful that Eddie made him take that first aid course so he knows how to use a chair to perform abdominal thrusts.

The document is in a project proposal format, complete with a neat little table of contents, an executive summary, a list of the issues to be covered, headers and sub-headers, even the occasional chart. Richie doesn't get to skim these right away because his eyes are locked on the title of the proposal.

_Eddie Kaspbrak's Carefully Calibrated Sexual Awakening_

He feels like that gif Rilee sends him sometimes when he asks them whether he can bring a friend to an interview or an event like they still can't quite believe how much has changed in three months—the one where a guy blinks repeatedly and (as they pointed out) his eyes change colour. He closes the document, reads the email again, and stares particularly hard at the smiley. When he reopens the document, it still reads: _Eddie Kaspbrak's Carefully Calibrated Sexual Awakening_.

He wiggles his phone out of his pocket and drops it onto the counter. The email notification is still active on his phone, and he jumps at the sight of it. He tells Siri to _call Eds_ and she tells him she is _calling Eds sparkle heart with stars sparkle_ , which would be hilarious to hear aloud if there was any audible sound in his head other than a high-pitched scream.

"Edward Kaspbrak speaking," Eddie says. He has caller ID, he's just a dick.

"What the fuck is this?" Richie asks, his voice coming out at least three octaves higher than its normal register.

"Pretty self-explanatory, I think," Eddie says. His voice is light, quick, and he sounds all too pleased with himself.

"You can't just send me shit like this without giving me a heads up."

"Why? Getting excited?" Eddie asks, voice dropping quieter. Richie hears him get up from his chair (a task chair, mesh back, stupid expensive) and then the quiet _thonk_ of his office door closing.

"No, dude, I choked so hard on my fucking chips I thought I'd have to bend myself over a fucking chair."

"You can put it on the list."

Richie has blinked more in the last minute than he thinks he has all day. "What list?"

"You haven't even looked at the damn thing?" Eddie says, voice back up to its usual volume, full-force.

"No, you literally just sent it and I thought I was going to have an aneurism. Give me a fucking second," Richie snaps, trying to control his breathing. Eddie huffs out almost a _laugh_ on the other end of the line and Richie feels a little insane.

He focusses his attention on scrolling past the title page, the soft _clickclickclick_ of the scroll wheel on his mouse that Eddie made him buy because of a staunch anti-trackpad agenda. The table of contents divides the document into several sections. His eyes are drawn quickly to headers reading _sexual history, sexual interests,_ and, most prominently, _sexual conduct chart_.

Eddie, never one for letting silence sit, adds, "I talked about it with my therapist."

"Oh, your therapist knows about this," Richie says, aiming for light and joking but landing somewhere between nervous and faint.

"Yes. She was very supportive. It's all about taking manageable steps towards a goal in a way that works for both of us."

"Right. She didn't think it was pushing it to have a mission statement?"

"I didn't tell her about the mission statement," Eddie grumbles.

Richie scrolls down past sections written in honest-to-god paragraphs, sanitized, corporate little sentences summarizing Eddie's sexual experience, not sure if he desperately wants to read every single little detail or if it will just make him feel like a voyeur to tragedy.

There is, indeed, a chart. A sensible black and white chart, five rows: _Act, Eddie Receiving, Eddie Giving, Richie Receiving, Richie Giving_. He closes his eyes and breathes out hard through his nose.

"I'm really happy you want to fuck me but this seems like a lot of fucking effort," Richie says, voice coming out strangled. He opens his eyes again to stare at the chart.

"Can you turn off some of that noise?"

"What noise?"

"The TV and the music, dipshit."

It's a camera lens bringing the world back into focus. He can hear it now, the harsh, discordant overlap of the afternoon newscaster talking about eliminating free street parking, and Billy Joel telling him _sooner or later it comes down to fate_. He scrambles to stop them both, and when the music cuts out during the second verse, the empty, silent room sounds like a ringing in his ears.

"Rich. Sweetheart. It's a lot of effort because it's worth a lot of effort. Not just because I love you and I want us to have a sexual relationship for intimacy reasons, but also because I've never been this horny in my fucking life. I literally couldn't focus on work today because I was thinking about it and I did this instead. I just need to handle it in a way that makes sense to me."

If Richie's chest tightens that's between him and God. "Okay. I understand. I love you."

"I love you too. Now please look at the chart. You have editing permissions."

The chart starts out pretty tame, really going down to the basics. Each column is not a checkbox, like a series of acts to completions, but a text box—space to write _comments_ and _feelings_ and whatever. All the columns are blank, and the note at the top of the chart indicates that he is excluding his sexual history and starting anew. Richie never thought the word _frottage_ could be so sexy simply by virtue of the knowledge that Eddie typed it out on a work computer.

"Does your office have keystroke software?"

"No. I checked," Eddie says, a heavily implied _of course_ tacked onto the end.

"God, you're so hot."

"Don't make fun of me," he growls.

"I'm not. Dude, I'm literally not. It's hot that you thought of that. Everything you do is fucking hot."

The silence on the phone stretches, long and slow. One of them normally resists silent gaps, quick to fill them with babbling, unfocussed stories about their day or, occasionally, stories from their 27 years apart. They had quite the well to draw from for filling silences. Richie's throat itches to keep talking but he waits, scrolling slowly further down the list, line by line the acts getting more explicit.

"You uh—you want to do this too, right?" Eddie’s voice is barely above a breath, a softness so foreign, a shred of vulnerability that scares him a little.

And there it is, Richie thinks. A puzzle piece, something slotting into place: maybe in his attempt to ensure Eddie didn't feel _pressured_ into anything, he had done the opposite.

"Eddie. Eddie, baby, please. I want you so bad. I've wanted you since I knew what it was to want someone else. I used to jerk off like four times a day in high school and it was all for you."

"Thirteen year old you jerking it isn't doing anything for me," Eddie deadpans, but his voice settles back into his usual tone.

"It’s called set up, you ever read a fucking book? Jesus. Anyway it’s like 30 years later and nothing has changed. I jerk off twice a day and I’m always thinking about you. You're so fucking hot, Eds. I'm always thinking about touching you. Making you feel good."

Eddie swallows hard on the other end of the phone. "Jesus. Fuck okay. We need to—we need to talk through this before we accidentally cross something off the list."

Sure enough, Richie continues scrolling and sees _phone sex_ , right under _sexting_. His expectation, in the few moments he had between learning that a chart existed and seeing it with his own eyes, he had sort of thought it would stop at anal and that he would never, in any world, read the word _rimming_ typed out by Eddie. The list continues, though, describing positions, variations, and even _kinks_. The temperature in the room has either raised at least fifteen degrees or he is having a stroke.

"There's some uh—kinky stuff in here, Eds," he says, his voice thready, high.

"I like to be thorough," Eddie says, voice serious. "Assuming things go well, I don't see why we shouldn't try things out and see what we like. Don't we deserve good sex, Rich?"

"Yeah. Yeah I—good point," Richie reads, trying desperately hard to at least be pitching in the same _ballpark_ as normal while he has to stare at the word _handcuffs_ with his own two fucking eyes.

Eddie's voice drops into something impatient. "So if there's something you want to add in there, add it. Fill out your general remarks on things you have done. Okay?"

"Okay," Richie says, scrolling back up before he can reach whatever awaits him at the bottom of the list. It's easier to breathe when he isn't having his brain supply vivid images alongside each row of the table. "This is fucking bonkers, dude."

"Sounds like a man who doesn't want to try something on the list tonight."

Richie sits up so quickly in the chair that he slides back a few inches. His eyes latch on the top few rows of the table and skitter across the words there.

"Tonight?"

"Yeah. If you want."

"Uh, fuck yes, I want. Dude," Richie says, trying to keep his voice level. "What did you want to start with?"

"You said the other day that grinding on the couch could just be grinding on the couch."

For all his bold confidence, his ability to put into words what he wants and how he feels in the face of a barrier to the physical act, Eddie’s voice wavers at the suggestion. Nervous. It's the link between the wanting and the carrying out.

It's not like Richie isn't _nervous_. His hands tremble at his sides to reach out to Eddie every moment they aren't connected. When they are, when his hands slide against the smooth curve of his jaw, around the back of his neck, into his hair, he wants nothing more than to feel every inch of skin he can touch. He dips his hands up under the hem of Eddie's shirt when he can, when Eddie wants that, and every new patch of skin he gets to touch makes him greedy for more. He wants more. He can also be nervous about making sure that Eddie thoroughly enjoys it.

"Then, grinding on the couch it is, my dear sir! Pip pip! Hurry your way home so we may commence," he announces, putting on the poshest accent he can muster, channeling something old and obscenely wealthy. Eddie sighs.

"Fuck off."

"I love you," Richie retorts.

"I love you too, fuckhead," Eddie says. "Did you get that recipe I emailed early?"

It gives Richie an excuse to close out the document for now and regale Eddie with the tale of his hunt for the tea, the moldy ricotta, and how difficult it actually was to find garlic scapes this time of year.

* * *

After three attempts to make homemade pappardelle and wasting the last few eggs in the carton of failures, Richie orders sushi from their usual place down the block. It's not the best sushi in New York. It's probably not even the best sushi in walking distance. It is, however, the closest, and its health department records are spotless enough to satisfy Eddie. When they (read: Eddie) feel particularly bold they order from a place two blocks further than their usual that has a distant history of rodent activity but perhaps the best agedashi tofu Richie has ever tasted.

The day has already been a rollercoaster for Richie so he settles on the usual place, lugging the overfilled plastic bag stuffed with styrofoam containers back to their apartment, crouching over the bag to shield it from the rain. Every time Eddie orders he remembers to arrive early with their own tupperware like a responsible citizen and every time Richie orders he forgets he placed the order until ten minutes after pick-up time and finds himself almost jogging down the block.

He gets back to the apartment soaked through to the bone because he refuses to buy a rain jacket. Eddie keeps insinuating it is because he is just waiting for an opportunity to go back to Los Angeles and Richie keeps telling him it is because it gets under his skin. He's not going anywhere, including to a Patagonia. Work it out in therapy, dickhead.

Find My Friends suggests that Eddie is still fifteen minutes out so Richie takes a minute to panic. It's fine. It's just Eddie. They eat dinner after work together pretty much everyday, Eddie sees him in ratty t-shirts and ugly ash-grey sweatpants everyday, and they make out on the couch everyday. He shouldn't be _nervous_.

Nervous is less of an emotion and more of a state of existence for him at this point so you can hardly blame him for being a little petrified at the prospect of this strange new sex-fiend in progress version of Eddie coming home with Expectations.

Richie spent most of the afternoon not occupied by failing at homemade pasta opening and closing the document and filling out bits and pieces at a time. Eddie knew about his sexual history. He was _repressed_ , not a fucking virgin. He was able to go through the list and tick most of the boxes and leave three word comments because apparently Eddie wanted him to _qualify_ his cocksucking experience. What's he supposed to say? _Actually Eds, really love having a cock in my mouth, would love it if you tugged my hair and told me I was doing a good job while I’m at it, thanks for asking!_ He isn't sure how to do that without scaring him away or making him feel pressured so his comment reads: _yeah stick it in me baby_. 

Eddie knew Richie liked sex. His sexual history was a series of one-off hookups broken up by a few relationships always cut short, either because _come on Rich it's fucking 2012 can you please at least come out to your fucking parents_ or because _actually dude I can tell you don't love me and I don't know why you keep pretending_. Richie didn't know either, at the time. Now he knows: it is hard to fall in love when someone you don't remember holds your entire heart in his hands.

The depressing romp through his dating history as he filled in the document really landed here: Richie has had sex. He has had good sex. He has, on occasion, both with the boyfriend who wanted to meet his parents and the boyfriend he didn't actually love, had great sex. He knows enough of what he likes even if putting it into words feels like swallowing thumbtacks. He thinks that, given the opportunity, he could have good to great to probably amazing sex with Eddie.

Now that he has the opportunity he is absolutely petrified at the prospect of fucking up Eddie's first chance to enjoy sex in his life and maybe, just maybe, it's making him a little antsy.

His fifteen minutes becomes ten while he stands, petrified, in the kitchen, dripping rainwater on the floor, the bag of sushi still gripped in his hands. He rationalizes that it will take Eddie at least five additional minutes to get from the underground parking up to their suite, maybe even more because he insists on taking the stairs to their floor even when Richie steps into the elevator without him.

He changes clothes three times, first into casual clothes, then into something bordering on _nice_ that he wore to the last movie premiere he had a bit role in, and then back into different casual clothes because he thinks that Eddie would really, truly laugh at him if Richie tried to wear a pressed shirt to dinner in their living room. He settles on a less-ratty, soft t-shirt that he thinks Rilee probably bought for him because it is far nicer than the three pack of shirts he gets at Costco, and pairs it with the only black sweatpants he owns that don't have holes worn into the thighs yet.

By the time Eddie walks in, already grumbling about some asshole who was driving just below the speed limit once they finally got out of the gridlock, Richie has thoroughly sweat through his shirt but has at least managed to unpack the sushi onto real dinnerware and start rinsing the styrofoam.

When Eddie rounds the corner Richie expects awkward eye contact, a pause, a weight in the air because the last time they talked Eddie said he wanted to grind on the couch and Richie's brain short-circuited and he has been effectively unable to function for the rest of the day. Instead, Eddie shrugs off his coat when he steps into the kitchen, leans up to press a kiss to the side of Richie's mouth, and doesn't stop talking the whole time. It makes him relax a little. If Eddie can be normal, he can.

Then again, Eddie also made an entire document dedicated solely to fucking him that he wrote almost exclusively on company time so it is quite possible that neither of them have any idea how to be normal.

"—and then, when I finally pass this fucking asshole, he has the absolute fucking balls to flip me off first. What the fuck? Fuck you man. Don't drive in this fucking city if you don't know how to drive you piece of fucking shit. What happened to making dinner?"

Richie tries to find a joke or a lie or a deflection or anything to distract Eddie from the idea that Richie is nervous about this, like he's even allowed to be fucking nervous about this when he has spent almost every moment since he remembered Eddie existing thinking about what it would be like.

He ends up feeling like a ventriloquist doll whose puppeteer has forgotten to speak, mouth opening and closing like he hopes words will fall from them without him needing to think about them if he just wills it to happen. It doesn't. Eddie's face shifts from lingering fury at New York drivers to something close enough to concern that Richie feels worse about it.

"Rich?"

"Ran out of eggs," he settles on, not exactly a lie, but the answer placates Eddie enough that he drops it with a lingering stare.

"We eat too many eggs anyway. I think maybe we should go vegan," Eddie says. "We already dropped dairy."

Richie loves the _we_ enough that he knows he would agree to anything even though he has no fucking clue what too many eggs are or if they’re even there yet. "Can you give me, like, a week to get used to being a vegetarian?"

Richie wishes he hadn't left every rejected outfit component on the floor of their bedroom and wonders if he can sneak in there to tidy it up somewhere between dinner and possible couch grinding and sleep. Eddie will want a shower, right? He always wants a shower. He showers after a brisk enough walk to the park down the road. Richie will tidy up the clothes during the shower.

"You're not a vegetarian, you still eat fish," Eddie snipes, tugging off his scarf and retreating to the hallway, to their coat rack.

"Wait. What? Fish aren't vegetables? You mean I'm eating something with a mom?"

Eddie's voice carries from the hallway, which isn't saying much because it carries from pretty much everywhere. "I'm not walking into this fucking joke."

"I'm so used to just eating the moms that—"

"You've never been near a pussy in your fucking life," Eddie snaps, voice trailing further into this apartment. "Why are there clothes all over the fucking floor?"

Ah fuck.

"You know me, I'm a slob," he calls down the hall, shutting off the sink and stacking the styrofoam in the corner of the counter. He dries his hands on the little crocheted tea towel buttoned to the cabinet of their sink. Mike has taken up crocheting a while he travels but so far only tea towels. They have received six in the mail so far and are running out of places to hang them.

"No, you aren't. Why are you being weird?"

He doesn't answer, hoping that maybe if he busies himself with something that Eddie will just change out of work clothes and come back to the kitchen having forgotten about it, slipping into his Friday habit of ranting for somewhere between ten minutes and two hours about work this week and then apologizing for talking about work while Richie spends the whole time trying to find a way to tell him that he doesn't have to apologize for sharing his life and that, quite the the inverse, Richie spends every moment trying not to thank him for it.

His therapist says he has to learn how to let people care about him without it feeling like he's asking some terrible favour for it. He is working on it.

For a moment it seems like he's off the hook. He hears their closet open and then several drawers slide in and out, the soft rustle of clothing. He focuses instead on setting out the nice wood chopsticks they bought at a weekend market, on ripping off squares of paper towel to tuck under the edge of their plates, and weaseling the cork out of a bottle of red that might possibly pair well with sushi but he hopes will mostly take the edge off of his nerves, just enough for him to stop overthinking it. Grinding on the couch can just be grinding on the couch, and maybe Eddie will change his mind and grinding on the couch won't even happen and they can just go to bed and watch the Good Place episodes he PVR'd from the week.

He almost drops the bottle, liquid sloshing enough to spill onto his empty plate, when Eddie slips his arms around his waist and leans up to press his mouth against the nape of his neck. He pours a slightly heavy glass for himself and a normal glass for Eddie, hands shaking, as they breathe together there.

"Was the document too much?" Eddie asks, voice soft. It would be easier if he could be a dick about this.

"I shouldn't be nervous," Richie says, which is close enough to an admission without having to say the words.

Eddie is quiet for a moment and Richie sets the wine glasses down and shifts the dinnerware around uselessly just to have something to do with his hands while Eddie presses his forehead to his neck.

"What are you nervous about?"

Richie closes his eyes and swallows the joke that rises to his mouth. "It's—I don't want it to be bad. For you, I mean. I want to make you feel good."

Eddie lets out a soft huff against his back that sends a shiver down his spine. If he weren't so preoccupied by nerves, Richie would be able to focus on the fact that he is so fucking horny that the heat of Eddie's breath on his spine is enough to make his cock twitch in his sweats. He could be having an easy-breezy time but all he can think about is how much he wishes he could sink into the floor.

"Rich. It's okay for you to be nervous."

"Is it?"

"Yes, fuckhead," he says affectionately, pressing another kiss just below his hairline.

"Your pet names are so mean."

"You love it."

He does, he really, really does, because all it took was Eddie's pressed up against his back and a little insult and he can already feel the tension easing out of his body, his shoulders relaxing, his neck starting to ache now that it's free from the stiff perch he had held since their phone call earlier.

"Sorry."

"Don't fucking apologize, asshole," Eddie says, pulling away from him. "Can we please eat? I'm fucking starving."

Eddie drops down into one of their dining room chairs, the one he calls _his_ and the only one he sits in like there aren't five other identical chairs to choose from. He insists the cushion on his chair is softer than the rest of them, which is absolutely bullshit but Richie has learned the hard way not to even jokingly try to steal the chair. He has changed into his usual house clothes, now that the nights are longer and laced with a November chill—a sweater from NYU, this one slightly too big for him, heather blue with sleeves falling past his wrists, and dark grey cotton shorts that hit mid-thigh.

A rare silence settles between them, giving Richie a moment to reign in his thoughts and, more importantly, get some tofu teriyaki onto Eddie’s plate before Hangry Eddie makes an appearance. It’s largely the same as regular Eddie but with the delightful addition of impossibly more specific and targeted insults that are not abated until long after he has started eating.

Eddie has been good for him in many ways but actually using a dining table on occasion has been pretty fucking great. Who knew you could set a mood simply by putting dinner on plates, using real cutlery, and pulling yourself out of the over-worn spot on the couch? 

By the time he sits down, Eddie’s eyes are fixed on his phone with the singular focus he rewards any object of his attention: eyes narrowed, brows furrowed, bottom lip pulled between his teeth. He doesn’t look up from his phone when Richie places his wine glass closer to him or when he shoves chopsticks into his free hand, only mumbling a soft _thanks_.

They don’t quite have a no phones at the table rule, because they’re two guys in their forties and (unfortunately? Richie needs more therapy before he decides conclusively) not parents of unruly teenagers. Eddie sometimes, angrily, takes work calls after hours and Richie’s schedule is a sloppy mix of east coast and west coast times combined with, well, being a celebrity trying actively to rehabilitate his image. Eddie does, however, start to bounce his knee or pick up his phone and put it back down when Richie spends a little too much time in his Twitter mentions. He’s not sure whose benefit the anxious jittering is for but he usually appreciates it. Eddie isn’t typically the one scrolling.

“Did you have to change the document title?” Eddie asks, punctuating his question by shoving an oversized veggie roll into his mouth. 

“Oh. You’re going to—you’re going to read that right now?”

He’s sweating again, just when he finally felt like he had dried out. It pricks at the back of his neck and under his arms and right down the centre of his back. He freezes with his chopsticks midair and doesn’t remember what he was reaching for. He swallows a mouthful of wine instead and tries not to think too much about Eddie reading his list.

“Yes. Was “sexual awakening” not enough?”

“I can forgive a lot Eds but I can’t forgive the failure to alliterate when an opportunity arises.”

Eddie frowns at this but doesn’t look up, eating steadily as he scrolls. It’s almost clinical this way. To Eddie this may be a comfort; for Richie, clinical makes him think of hospital intake forms his hands were shaking too hard to fill out until Stan pulled the clipboard from his hands and Bill talked a doctor into letting him into surgery.

He doesn’t like this train of thought so instead he watches as Eddie scrolls, slowing and resuming when he reads over Richie’s commentary. Richie’s jitters ease again when he watches Eddie stifle a laugh at his comment next to “intercrural sex”, which reads _just call it thigh-fucking you pretentious dickhead._

Again, they’ve talked about their sexual history. Talking about their sexual history is very different from breaking every sexual act you’ve ever engaged in down to two columns of (received) and (given) and trying to ascribe your feelings towards them, then sitting in silence over sushi while your boyfriend reads the list. He tries not to let himself get too caught up in over analyzing Eddie’s reactions and instead snags a piece of tempura and nearly drops it into the tentsuyu.

“Choking?”

Richie knocks over the dipping sauce container and scrabbles to find enough napkins to sop up the salty mess oozing across their dining table. Eddie doesn’t look up from his phone, eyes fixed on the document, but Richie can see the fucker bite the inside of his cheek to stop from laughing. It’s one thing to enjoy being choked a little in bed. It’s something _completely different_ to have your tightly-wound boyfriend say “choking?” in the same, mild way that a normal person might say “raining today?” or “toast for breakfast?”

“You’re the one who put it on the fucking list,” Richie grumbles, face heating as he balls up the napkins. He stares blankly, sadly, at the remaining tempura pieces devoid of their dip and shoves a kabocha squash piece in his mouth whole.

“Erring on the side of inclusion,” Eddie says. “You enjoy that?”

For all his hang-ups about physical intimacy, Eddie knows what he wants and isn’t afraid to speak it into existence—he doesn’t pull any punches or use any vague language when he talks about this. Richie loves him so fucking much.

“That’s what I fucking said didn’t I?” Richie tries to snap, but it comes out high-pitched, embarrassed.

“Hm. We can work up to it,” Eddie says, clicking further along the list.

You’ll have to forgive him if his mind goes absolutely fucking blank at the thought of love of his life Eddie Kaspbrak with his hands around his throat. He’s only a human. A deeply horny human whose boyfriend has designs on becoming some sort of fucking sex guru.

Eddie mercifully makes it through the rest of the document without commentary on Richie’s additions, only pausing briefly to type something new into the document. Richie’s hands itch at the urge to see what he has added, almost craning his neck to peel but deciding that is exactly what Eddie wants him to do and he will not be baited. Richie also thinks there’s a pretty good chance he’s reading into it too much but he’s not prepared to confront that.

They’re halfway through dinner when Eddie puts his phone face down and starts talking about his workday, specifically how Christina (the only competent coworker, he insists) was saddled with a new intern. It almost feels like a normal dinner now, with Eddie talking a mile-a-minute and waving with his hands.

Except.

Except he’s not meeting his eyes. Eye contact usually makes Richie nervous—something he has been called on by managers, directors, boyfriends, talent scouts, and fans, something he works on with everyone—but is almost effortless with Eddie, maybe because he always wants to be looking at him. Eddie always wants to talk right at him: another example of the full, consuming force of his attention.

“You good?” he asks, cutting Eddie off midway through a story that has shifted focus to the office microwave.

There is little Eddie hates more than being cut off and it usually earns him a glare, a swat across the chest, occasionally something being tossed in his direction. Today he raises his head slowly, eyes just over Richie’s shoulder, with a bright pink flush crawling up his face. Richie really shouldn’t, not when he looks this embarrassed, but he peeks down at his lap.

“Getting a little excited there, Eds?” he taunts, pleased now. It’s hard to be nervous when he has the choice to torment Eddie instead.

Eddie jabs him in the arm with the top of his chopsticks. “Yeah? What if I fucking am? Isn’t that the whole fucking point? You think I haven’t thought about this shit? It’s fucking hot to know specifically how you feel about things, fucksticks.”

“I’ll show you a fuckstick,” he leers, poking Eddie back.

“Not if you keep making fun of me,” Eddie grumbles.

“I’m not making fun of you!”

“Yeah, you are.” Eddie turns back to his food, pushing an avocado roll around until it unrolls, the seaweed layer resting flat and limp on the plate.

Richie groans and turns in his chair to face him, knees bumping against the edge of Eddie’s chair. He leans forward and wraps his arms around Eddie’s waist, tugging him gently at first. When Eddie doesn’t move, he groans again and gives him a firm yank, enough to make Eddie yelp, but also enough to make him slide off the chair onto Richie’s lap.

The flush darkens on his cheeks and Richie’s nervous, not stupid—he knows Eddie likes this part, being manhandled a little, being pulled into his lap or on top of his body, being lifted by the meat of his thighs up onto the kitchen counter. He squirms for a moment but then he relaxes against Richie’s chest, setting his chopsticks down neatly on his plate, before turning to him.

“Hey,” Richie says softly, grinning.

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Hi.”

“Not to be a little bitch but I’m nervous,” he says, tightening his arms around Eddie’s waist, feeling the full line of his body press up against his chest. He rests his chin on Eddie’s shoulder and stares up at him.

“You’re always a little bitch,” Eddie says. He cranes his neck to face him now, the tips of their noses brushing. “I know you like being told what to do but I’m going to need you to take the lead at least for a while.”

“Hey now, don’t make assumptions based on my sexual history,” he teases, leaning up to press a kiss to Eddie’s face, first on the tip of his chin, then the side, then along the jaw, gentle chaste little touches.

“I’m making assumptions based on how much you like when I tell you what to do,” Eddie says, not quite managing the bark he aims for, not when Richie’s mouth moves further down his jaw, lips pressing under his ear.

Richie really hadn’t meant to start anything, just aiming to pacify Eddie or his nerves, or both, but when he pulls away to stare at Eddie his eyes are burning, not like fire but like coal, a heat simmering just below the surface, a touch of heat away from being molten.

And then Eddie’s hands are sliding up over his stomach, his pecs, one curling around his neck and one cupping his cheek. He pulls him into a kiss, a press of the lips for only a moment before he nips at Richie’s lips, before he slides his tongue into Richie’s mouth still tasting like soy sauce and cucumber and then nothing at all because all Richie can think is that this kiss is both familiar and nothing like Eddie has ever kissed him.

Richie opens his mouth easily, happy to let Eddie set the pace. That pace is quickly hot, hard, fast, Eddie pressing closer against his body, licking past his teeth. Richie’s hands slide up his back, hiking under the hem of his sweater, fingers grazing over the hot skin at the small of his back.

Eddie pulls away, just a breath between their mouths, long enough to blink heavily at Richie. He grins and closes the gap again, tilting his head back, twisting fingers in his hair and pulling, kiss shifting from something hot and controlled to something messier, wetter, coordination slipping as Eddie pants into his mouth. Richie grazes his hands further up his back, fingers following the bumps of his spine, over the jut of his shoulders, palming the muscles of his back. _Eddie Eddie Eddie._

When Eddie pulls away this time, his eyes are glassy and unfocused, already-dark irises imperceptible. “Bed.”

“Bed?”

“That’s what I fucking said,” Eddie says, a bite creeping its way into his voice. He raises an eyebrow as if to challenge Richie, like Richie could possibly say no to anything he asked.

It doesn’t stop him from being a dick about it. “What happened to grinding on the couch?”

“We’re grinding on the bed instead.”

Richie really shouldn’t be stalling, not when Eddie is looking at him like he would eat him whole if he could, not when his erection is pressed against the underside of Eddie’s thigh, not when Eddie _wants him_ like this, wants Richie, wants Richie to touch him and hold him and make him feel good, make him come. He knows this.

“Bed instead. Nice rhyme,” he says anyway.

“There will be no grinding anywhere if you don’t shut up.”

“What about dinner?”

“Richard,” Eddie growls this time, eyes narrowing and his brows contorting into something much less patient.

“You’re right, fuck dinner, fuck it, fuck it, let’s go.”

He doesn’t give Eddie a chance to stand, instead slipping one hand under his knees. Eddie is swearing and complaining and squirming but lets Richie stand up like this, one arm under his back and the other hooked under his knees. Richie grins wildly.

“When you can’t move tomorrow it’s not my fucking fault,” Eddie whines while Richie shifts his grip, staggering a little from the weight but unwilling to put him down. He’s compact, but he’s heavy, all muscle. Heavier than fat is fucking right.

“Looking forward to it.”

He nearly trips three times on the way to their room, an impressive number given the size of their small apartment, first on the leg of the chair he was sitting on, then the edge of their fluffy violet area rug, and again when he finally gets into their room and realizes Eddie refused to pick up his clothes off the ground, which likely took monumental volumes of self-control and/or annoyance for him to leave.

They reach the bed without injury, both laughing about the close call now that they’re in the clear. He thinks about tossing Eddie onto the bed but thinks that will _actually_ fuck up his back, so he settles on dropping him the two feet down onto the bed and laughing when he bounces back a little, limbs flailing, a stream of curses falling from his mouth. Richie gives him another shove until Eddie settles on his side of the bed and, instead of overthinking it, Richie lies down next to him, shuffling close, heat leaping between their bodies.

“You’re annoying,” Eddie says, in the same, unmistakably fond voice in which he says other phrases, like _see you at home_ or _I love you_.

“That’s what they call me.”

Eddie starts to smile, half-committed to another eye roll, but he stops. His eyes skitter from Richie’s face, to his chest, to the erection not flagged by their stumbling journey back to their room. Richie is ready for this, even as disappointment curls in his chest. He’s ready to tell Eddie that it’s okay, that he can wait, that he could wait if it never happened, that they can go back to dinner and round the night off with TV. He’s ready to say all this and then pull Eddie to his chest and kiss him, slowly, pouring everything he can’t quite say into the kiss: _you being alive is enough, it’s always going to be enough, I’m so happy you’re here_.

He isn’t ready for Eddie to sit up abruptly, purse his lips, and pull off his sweater in one not-quite-smooth motion, the neckline catching on his jaw for a moment before he tosses the garment to the foot of the bed. There's something defiant in the way he raises his chin, the way he sits high up on his knees with his chest bared in front of Richie, like it’s a challenge.

It's not like Richie has never seen his shirtless. They've been taking it slow but they're still two people who live together in a little one bedroom with only so much space to move around and a bathroom door that doesn't close right. He has seen flashes of Eddie's chest, of his thighs, of his muscled back, between showers and changing in the morning. Richie has always stared for several seconds before averting his gaze, worried he will be caught looking.

He knows, in theory, that Eddie goes running most mornings and pushes the living room furniture aside to do various exercises in front of the TV while Richie tries desperately to focus on his work. He has felt Eddie's strong arms around him, their chests together, the thick muscle of his thigh. He knows about the twisting scar tissue mangling his side, a mostly cosmetic injury that was a few inches from fatal.

There’s something completely different about being allowed to look.

Richie has spent the better part of two decades eating frozen dumplings, takeout, or instant noodles with broccoli added and calling it a well-rounded meal, with only periodic exercise required by television roles to cut through the bad, nothing enough to be called a routine or even a habit. Eddie takes care of his body, even with his new desire to enjoy his life, and it shows. Richie drinks in the sight of his arms, thick, strong, the hair smattering across his pecs, trailing down to actual fucking abs.  _ Compact _ , he thinks deliriously.

Richie was never pious as a kid, or as an adult for that matter. Stan—through combination of familial pressure and affection—knew his zemirot inside and out, could recite them on cue in his soft singing voice while Richie butchered each pronunciation because it made others giggle. He looks at Eddie, kneeling over him, and thinks it’s never too late to be reverential. He wants to learn how to worship between the planes of his stomach and the curl of his biceps. He wants to sing hymns against the thin skin of his throat and the jut of his wrist.

Instead of saying any of this, which he thinks may land somewhere between absurd and blasphemous, Richie intelligently manages a "Mmf."

"Mmf?" Eddie asks, brow furrowing, and Richie wishes he wouldn't be adorable while also being brain-meltingly hot.

"That's what I said."

"Mmf isn't a word."

"It's the only one I can remember now," Richie says, waving a hand towards Eddie's midsection in explanation.

"Thrilling," Eddie says dryly. Even in the low light of their bedroom, illuminated by city street lights, Richie can see his cheeks flush. "Take off your shirt."

"Bossy," Richie says, shifting up into a sitting position.

"I thought you liked that."

"Wasn't a complaint," Richie says, dropping a heavy wink. He curls his fingers along the hem of his shirt and hesitates. "Don't go getting excited. It's nothing impressive. We don't all have abs of steel forged over decades of punishing workouts."

"I'm attracted to you, dipshit. Take off your fucking shirt."

"You say the sweetest things," Richie says, but he complies, pulling his shirt over his head, only getting a little stuck in the arm hole before he tosses it on the floor.

Richie doesn't love his body, doesn't quite believe he's attractive, certainly not in the way Ben or Eddie are, but he's not so insecure as to doubt that someone could find him attractive. People have before, taking one look at him in bars he shyly sidled into and sizing him up.

This doesn't prepare him for the way Eddie looks at him now. His eyes narrow, focussed, roaming over Richie's chest, his arms, his stomach. His eyes darken as his pupils expand. He looks at Richie like he's _hungry_ for him, like he likes what he sees and wants to know how Richie feels underneath his hands.

It has been a hot minute since someone looked at Richie like he wanted him and he's not prepared to confront how good it feels.

"Are you just going to stare at me or are you going to make me come?" Eddie asks, voice low, harsh, snapping Richie from his thoughts.

"You're the one staring."

"Yeah? So do something about it?" Eddie challenges, and Richie groans.

He reaches out, hands slowly cutting through the space between them until they settle on the curve of Eddie's hips, where his soft cotton shorts hang low. His hands tighten there and he manhandles Eddie onto his lap, before sliding back on the bed to lean against the headboard, propped up by his pillows.

"This all right?"

"More would be nice," Eddie says snippily.

"Jesus, fuck, fine, let me know if I'm going too fast," Richie says, laughing, dragging his palms along Eddie's sides, along smooth skin that gives way on one side to pink scar tissue, healing like a dream but still ridged under his hands.

"What if you're going too slow?"

He's the most annoying person on the face of the fucking planet and Richie thinks if he loved him anymore he might burst.

Instead of answering him, Richie slides his hands around his back, holding Eddie in place while he sits up. He presses their lips together, something soft and chaste that makes Eddie whine, always on the verge of complaining. Richie tilts his head instead to press a kiss lower, just below his lips, then on the sharp line of his chin, before opening his mouth a touch to trail kisses along Eddie's jaw.

They've done this before, and more, but the press of Richie's mouth is still enough to make Eddie melt against his body, the tension seeping out of his limbs, his mouth parting with a soft huff of air against Richie's cheek. Richie mouths at the junction between Eddie's jaw and his ear, and Eddie makes a quiet, keening sound.

Richie slides one hand up, dragging slowly along Eddie's spine, feeling his shiver in his grasp, to cup the back of his neck. He tilts his head to the side, a gentle guiding hand, to give him more room to work. He presses hot, open-mouthed kisses down his neck now, stopping just below where the collar of his work shirts hits to bite down, hard. Eddie moans, head falling back.

"Jesus, Rich."

Richie pulls his head back for a moment. "Someone's got a pain kink," he teases.

"So what if I do? Do it again."

Richie doesn't know what to do with this information and instead lets his brain fill with a dense, thick fog that's starting to feel like the only thing keeping him tired to this mortal plane.

He bites down again on the same spot and pulls another sound from Eddie, this one huskier, a hitch in his breathing. Richie soothes over the spot with his tongue, then inches over to leave another mark. His hands slide back down Eddie's back, feeling the heat of his skin, the long stretches of muscle, the sharp curve of his spine. He trails his thumb down from the nape of his neck to feel every vertebrae, every bump under the skin.

Eddie has one hand in his hair, not quite gripping or pulling, but following Richie's head as he ducks lower, as he bites searing bruises along Eddie's collar bones, then lower. Eddie's hand tightens in his hair when he bites into the meat of his pec, just above his nipple, sucking another mark into his skin. Richie moans against his skin, biting down harder for it.

Richie finds himself touching every inch of skin, roaming over his back, then back to his sides, then pressing his palms flat against Eddie's abs. He thumbs along the trail of hair below his navel and drags his fingers along the hem of Eddie's shorts, not intending to dip into them, just a tease. Eddie gasps and grips his hair tighter, twisting. Eddie shifts in his lap and suddenly Richie can feel everything—Eddie tenting in his shorts, hard against Richie's stomach, Eddie squirming down against his cock, sliding along the curve of his ass through layers of clothes.

He ducks his head down further, craning against Eddie, mouthing lower over his chest. He presses a light, fluttering kiss to Eddie's left nipple and Eddie jolts in his lap.

"Okay?" he mumbles, lips just hovering above his skin.

"More than okay."

Richie presses another kiss against his nipple before sucking it into his mouth, rolling the nub between his lips, getting his skin slick with saliva. He bites down, soft at first, pulling a choked little sound from Eddie's mouth. He bites harder and Eddie's head drops down to his shoulder, forehead pressed into the curve of his neck, breathing hard as Richie continues. His hands slide from the back of his head further down his body, like he wants to touch, explore. He squeezes around Richie's arms. over his shoulders, hands flat against Richie's chest.

"You're so fucking hot, sweetheart," Eddie says right into his neck, and Richie feels the words hum alongside his pulse, feels them course through his veins. A soft sound pulls, unbidden, from his throat and Eddie laughs against his skin.

"Don't call me sweetheart, that's so unfair," Richie mumbles, ducking his head to Eddie's other nipple, biting down hard from the start.

"Unfair of you to walk around like this, _sweetheart_ ," Eddie bitches, digging his nails, hard, into Richie's shoulders for emphasis.

"Oh, honeybun, I'm so glad I do it for you," Richie says, words coming out mostly jumbled as he refuses to pull away from Eddie's chest.

"Don't talk with your mouth full."

Richie pulls away and sits up again, back straining under the effort, lips slick with spit. Eddie leans back to look at him.

He's gorgeous like this. He always looks gorgeous. Richie said this aloud once, six margaritas deep and laying down in Ben's lap while he dutifully scratched Richie's scalp. Eddie, across the room, nursing something sickly sweet, snapped at him, saying he looked like a Wall Street paper pusher waiting for a burnout, and Richie just laughed. Eddie's been beautiful to him for as long as he could remember, and all the years in between. He saw hints of Eddie in every loud voice, in every fast-talker, in every LA road-raging asshole and in every doe-eyed man he ever met. So of course Eddie is gorgeous to him.

He's even more beautiful here, in the low, hazy light of the room, with nothing but the sound of rain against the window, the city outside, and their radiator kicking on, flushed with arousal, eyes dark and fixed on Richie like he's the only person in the world. God, Richie wants him more than he has ever wanted anything and it feels a little bit like dumb luck that he gets to have him, like something he hasn't earned, something he wants desperately to earn.

"Eds, you haven't _seen_ my mouth full yet," he says with a wicked grin, daring to push this a little more, thinking back to what Eddie said, how Eddie wants this with him.

"Yet," Eddie agrees, and leans in, hand wrapping back around Richie's head to pull him into a bruising kiss, all teeth and tongue and enough pressure to make Richie’s head spin. When Eddie speaks again he doesn't pull away, talking, always too loud, right into Richie's mouth. "I was promised grinding."

Richie pulls away, just enough to breathe. "Ever heard of foreplay?"

"That's all I've heard of today."

"You're so mean," Richie says, nothing shy of delighted, before dropping his hands back to Eddie's waist and gripping him tightly.

Richie grinds up once, hard, holding Eddie in place on his lap and both of their heads fall back, groans rising to the ceiling. Eddie’s knees sink harder into the bed on either side of him and he matches Richie’s motions, grinding down against him while RIchie bucks up to meet him. At first their bodies aren’t quite aligned, half a step off from each other, but when Richie’s hands slide further up Eddie’s back they settle together and their erections brush through layers of clothing and it changes from good to fucking incredible.

Richie gets lost in the feeling, settling over them like a haze: Eddie’s fingers twisting in his hair, his other hand digging into his shoulders, nails leaving crescents in his skin, the heat of Eddie’s skin under his as Richie maps his body with his hands, sliding over his back, up his sides, back down to his waist with each thrust of his hips, the sounds falling freely from Eddie’s lips that he chases, desperate to repeat them, focussed narrowly on Eddie’s pleasure.

“Put your back into it,” Eddie gasps when Richie rolls up again.

“I couldn’t possibly be using my back more.”

“Quitter.”

“I mean, I could stop if you like,” Richie says, canting his hips on the  _ stop _ .

Eddie’s eyes snap open to fix him with something that might be a glare if it had any heat. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

Eddie’s hands slide to his face, cupping his jaw with his hands and bringing their mouths together, hard, rough, teeth clacking together for a moment before he tilts his head and licks the seam of his lips, past his teeth, pulling back to suck Richie’s lower lip. He bites down and Richie gasps into his mouth.

Richie skims his hands down Eddie’s back, thumbs settling in the divots at the base of his spine. He teases along the edge of Eddie’s shorts and he bucks back against Richie’s hands. This is the part where they normally stop, with Richie’s hands wandering more freely, with Eddie’s breath higher, unsteady, thready little sounds that  _ must _ mean he’s getting close, a sound Richie wants to follow. Richie takes a chance and slides his hands down, palming Eddie’s ass, squeezing. Eddie groans right into his mouth, falling forward a little, resting their foreheads together, his breath hot against Richie’s face.

Richie is close, closer than he wants to admit, between the skin and the bruises and the weight on his lap, the way that Eddie’s eyes flutter open and fix him with fresh determination each time, before squeezing shut on each thrust against each other. He wants to live here, in the sounds Eddie’s making, in the way their bodies fit together, in how Eddie looks at him. 

Eddie says he wants this, and Richie believes him, but he’s still holding onto the possibility that they will stop, letting the eventuality linger in his mind. Eddie pulls away, separating their bodies, and stares down at him. He looks ruined, from the sweat on his forehead and the hair curling there, from the way his mouth hangs open, harsh breaths falling past his lips, bruising blossoming across his skin. For a moment, Richie thinks this is it.

A wicked grin flashes across Eddie’s face. He drops his hands down to Richie chest and pushes, hard, until Richie’s back hits the bed. He leaves his hands there, pinning Richie to the bed, and arches his back, rolling his hips down until they’re grinding together again. Eddie takes control of the pace, quick, almost brutal, fabric against fabric, hot in every place their bodies touch. Richie squeezes his eyes shut and throws his head back against the pillow, pleasure coursing through his body

Richie wants to come, he could like this, every drag of Eddie’s cock along his bringing him closer, the pressure on his chest, the sounds Eddie’s making above him, each sensation bringing him close to the edge. Eddie’s babbling, words coming out blurred together, a soft chant of _Richie Richie Richie, fuck, yes, come on,_ and Richie wrenches his eyes open.

“You close for me, Eddie baby?”

“Yeah, god, so fucking—fuck. So close, Rich, please.”

He doesn’t need to ask, but Richie would give him anything. His fingers tighten, gripping Eddie’s hips roughly, thumbs pressing hard against his hip bones. He holds Eddie still and ruts up against him, his cock brushing against Eddie’s with each shift of his hips.

Eddie’s head falls back, baring his throat in a long line, and he comes with a shout, body trembling against Richie. He can’t look away, watching as Eddie gasps for air, as he writhes against Richie, as his legs tremble. Richie grinds up against Eddie through his orgasm until he comes too, eyes wrenching shut, and all he can hear is the roar in his head and Eddie’s shuddering breaths above as he comes down.

When the world comes back into focus, it’s slow. He feels first the weight in his lap, the chilly air prickling the sweat on his skin, the dampness in his pants, Eddie’s palms still flat on his chest. Eddie pulls away, the separation sticky from sweat, and he rolls off Richie onto his side.

He doesn’t give Richie so much as second to breathe before he curls his hand around his jaw and pulls him into another kiss, this one slow, almost lazy. Their lips slide together, moist and soft, breath still coming in little gasps. Eddie sucks his lip slowly, with little pressure, just letting their mouths slide together and their breathing even out. Richie’s head spins, both heavy with pleasure and unspeakably light, a dizziness that feels less like vertigo and more like bliss.

This kiss slows until it is little more than a brush of their lips together. Eddie kisses him once more, a firm, grounding pressure, before pulling away and flopping back onto his pillow.

Richie stares at the ceiling, the white, stucco crumbling in spots. It’s like a haze has settled over him, something that feels like a warm blanket in the middle of an east coast winter, a glow bathing Richie’s mind in the bright yellows and oranges of a sunset. It’s a lot of things to feel when all Richie can think is _I have wanted to do that all my life and now I have_.

Eddie’s breathing still sounds uneven from next to him, and Richie turns his head to stare. Eddie lays flat on his back, lips curved up, staring at the stucco. "You good?"

"Good? Am I good?" Eddie asks, a breathless laugh punctuating the sentence. "I'm fucking furious. I can't believe I wasted three months of my life not fucking doing that."

"Best review I've ever gotten," Richie jokes, looking back at the ceiling and shuffling back until he's reclined, laying all the way down on the bed. He can feel the dampness cooling in his pants but his legs feel a little too much like jelly to care.

Eddie doesn't say anything right away, doesn't immediately turn to make a joke, to poke back at Richie, and after a moment Richie turns to look at him. Eddie's staring at him, cheek pressed into the pillow on his side of the bed, something expensive and memory foam that he insists is good for his neck and his back. Now it curves around his cheek, holding him in place, eyes fixed on Richie in a gaze he would dare call tender.

"That was really good, Rich," he says, voice as soft as it goes, not even the barest hint of a joke. "You made me feel fucking incredible."

Richie's chest tightens and his eyes prick and he thinks about what he didn't put in the document. He didn't know how to tell Eddie _actually, I know this is super embarrassing and classic fucking comedian of me to say but I kind of really like being told how I'm doing, isn't that a fucking riot?_ so he didn't, so he left the neat little header asking for _Other_ blank, unattended, and hoped he would find a way to ask for praise later, after he gave Eddie everything he needed.

But Eddie knows. Of course he knows. For all the sharp edges of Eddie Kaspbrak—all the biting insults and the swearing and the shouting and the road rage, all the reputation he has with the office interns for being scary and distant simply because he doesn't really know what to say to them and one time did, in fact, break the copier by slamming it closed too hard—he has the capacity for this: the capacity to be soft, to be kind, to be loving and to show his love. He shows Richie everyday, by picking up dinner on the way home and sharing his food, by letting Richie share bits and pieces of his comedy and telling him, quite seriously, that he's funny, by holding Richie close as they sleep so that the nightmares don't feel so scary.

It shouldn't catch him by surprise that Eddie knows what he needs, but Richie has spent so much time trying to be what other people needed that he never really gave much thought to himself.

Words stick in his throat and he swallows hard. He wants, absurdly, to thank Eddie for saying it. He settles on something close. "I love you."

Eddie's lips curl into a smile. "I love you too. Now go change."

Richie groans, flopping his head back on the pillow to stare at the ceiling. "Can't we just bask for a moment? What's wrong with basking?"

"The longer our dinner spends on the table the more bacterial growth occurs."

"You could just say you're hungry."

Eddie rolls his eyes. "Fine. I'm hungry. Now get up."

They stumble together into the ensuite, Eddie heading into the shower and Richie wiping himself down with a washcloth, much to Eddie's whiny and continued criticism, bitching loudly over the spray of the shower against the tiles. Richie heats up their food and by the time Eddie pads out of their room, wearing one of Richie's old tour shirts with the letters so faded that the shirt just says _ic z r_ , too big for Eddie as it hits him mid-thigh, Richie has dinner piled onto plates and the wine poured into mugs so they can eat on the couch.

They stay on the couch watching The Good Place until their plates are clean and their bodies loose from the wine, tangled together in a mess of limbs and decorative cushions. When the credits roll on the episode, Eddie climbs into his lap again and kisses Richie until he sees stars, until he's dizzy with love and lust, until they both come for the second time that night, legs shaking and hands gripping each other tight. Richie falls asleep first that night, even as Eddie's eyes droop low while pinned to the screen of his laptop, their sex document open to diligently document the experience.

When Richie peeks the next morning, while Eddie is in the shower, scrolling to the chart, he finds Eddie's box in the first row filled. He spends the rest of the day smiling, thinking of eight little words: _Very enjoyable. He's the love of my life_.

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang out on twitter [@beverlymarshian](https://twitter.com/beverlymarshian) if you like where I just complain about writing and post excerpts from my dozen wips.


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